Over The Years
by Cyberwolf
Summary: Neji's birthday, as celebrated over the years... Finally updated!
1. Thirteenth Birthday

**Disclaimer: Naruto and Co. don't belong to me. They are a privately held corporation based out of Konoha Valley.

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_Notes: I know that as usual I've posted the birthday fic late. I did it for Naruto's birthday fic; I barely made it in time for Tenten's. This was supposed to be a oneshot, was deleted and rewritten for being stupid to read multiple times, and is now a series. Hopefully it'll be finished by Sasuke's birthday. (Which will probably be late too)_

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The first time Tenten had given Hyuuga Neji a present, it was for his thirteenth birthday, and they were both newly-instated genin underneath an arguably insane, inarguably powerful Maito Gai. The kunoichi had thought long and hard about this - this celebrating of her new teammate's date of birth - and had come to her conclusion with less than full certainty.

She knew his birthday was on July 3 – and that was not due to her, upon learning who her teammates were to be, having obtained and then memorized their dossiers and stats. She knew because the third of July had become the equivalent of an official holiday in their class for all their Academy years. Starting weeks beforehand, the females of their year would embark on a very intense, very competitive campaign to make Hyuuga Neji's birthday the _best one ever oh my god!_

Whether it was or not, it was certainly always memorable.

Wardrobe and make-up was planned with an intensity that rivaled the creation of contingency war-plans. Colors were mixed, matched, analyzed and compared. Presents were sent away for, labored over, bought – _stolen - sabotaged._ Anxious mothers, hoping for the chance to become related to the prestigious Hyuuga clan, trotted their equally anxious daughters around all the best shops of Konoha. A veritable feast was cooked in various kitchens. The classroom was gone over by professional interior designers and party consultants and decorated accordingly. Arguments broke out. Fights did, too, as _the day_ grew nearer.

Tenten had once remarked that, if nothing else, the hysteria over July 3 accorded many of the kunoichi the most combat training they were willing to undergo.

In the meanwhile, the other boys (and Tenten, who could not bring herself to descend to this level of silliness) sat back, watched everything - in varying amounts of disbelief, jealousy, and amusement - and gleefully took advantage of the food brought to the classroom on _the day._ Neji himself let everything occur – she wouldn't go so far as to say 'accepted' – with silence and a sour look on his face, and it was rumored that the head of his clan had to order him every year _not_ to skip school on his birthday. He ate nothing, glared at anyone who attempted to hand-feed him, and left as soon as the end-of-class bell rang. A Hyuuga servitor would later drop by to pick up the myriad presents he always left behind. Each girl fondly thought he was now treasuring her birthday present – and _only _hers – in his room, secretly.

Tenten privately wondered whether he put it in storage or threw it away. She certainly never saw him use, wear, eat, or otherwise acknowledge the existence of any of the presents.

And it was the memory of these largely useless (for Neji, anyway – Tenten and the boys always enjoyed the food and the interruption of classes) birthday celebrations that gave Tenten pause. She had finally decided in favor of, for the first time, acknowledging Neji's birthday beyond a casual (and redundant, what with all the Happy Birthday Dear Neji banners strung up all over the classroom) greeting. They were teammates now. Surely things were different.

She wasn't sure if Lee had given Neji anything for his birthday. In order not to run against that potentially embarrassing little issue, she waited until she and Neji had been left alone for training to give Neji his birthday present.

She thrust the slim box at him with a mumbled, "Happy birthday, Neji," trying not to keep staring at her feet. She could only meet his blank white gaze for a second before her eyes darted back to the immensely interesting – undoubtedly less intimidating – ground, with the result that her head bobbed up and down for a few seconds before she forced herself to stop.

Neji's Byakugan-pale eyes traced slowly over the small white box, over the outstretched arms extending it to him, and finally to Tenten's half-embarrassed, faintly blushing face. Without making a move to accept it, he asked, in a quiet voice, "Why?"

"Why?" Tenten repeated awkwardly. "W…well, because it's your birthday, you know, and we're…we're teammates, and…"

"Ah," Neji said flatly. He looked down at the present, then casually accepted it from her hands. "I see."

Tenten fidgeted. "O…okay then. Um. Want to spar?"

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Two weeks later, Tenten paused in the middle of her monthly run for groceries – she bought in bulk, to save both time and money – to watch a group of children play at ninjas-and-samurai in the street. One of the biggest boys, apparently the leader of the 'ninja' side, was garnering considerable respect from his playmates for the real kunai he wielded in his hand. 

It was actually a ceremonial kunai, its edges blunted, so Tenten did not exercise her authority as a duly recognized kunoichi of Konoha and confiscate the weapon from its unauthorized wielder. Let the kids have their fun; heavens knew she had done worse – for example, wielding live steel – in her time. She watched them quietly.

She knew that blue-stained kunai as intimately as she knew the contours and shape of her own hands, from the dragon engraved onto the blade to the intricate scrollwork around the handle. She had, after all, forged it herself, and had last seen it in a small box, being gingerly offered to a white-eyed teammate.

She watched them for a few more minutes before resuming her errand, leaving the site with a casual shrug of her shoulders. She was entirely unsurprised at seeing it in the hands of a stranger child; and at least this way someone got some use out of it.

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**Preview: Neji's fourteenth birthday is remarkably similar to his thirteenth - except for one thing. **

_Please to be leaving the delicious, delicious reviews. They are bread-and-butter, you have no idea. And I really want to finish this before the 23rd._


	2. Fourteenth Birthday

**Disclaimer: Naruto is a wind-element, which is the supreme battle chakra. Kinda like in Tokyo Underground? Anyway, he don't belong to me. He don't belong to anyone.**

**He's the wind, baby.

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Neji's fourteenth birthday was remarkably similar to his thirteenth, down to the scene in which Tenten offered him another birthday present – just before a spar, left alone by Gai-sensei and his miniature version, while Tenten blushed and tried not to stare at the ground too long. And Neji asked the same question, in the same flat quiet voice: "Why?"

But this time Tenten had a different answer, an answer born of a year's worth of battles, and missions, and training, and learning each other's ways and quirks. "Because," she told him, smiling widely, "I'm glad that you were born."

She had forged him kunai, again, but this time it was not a ceremonial, overly-decorated piece. This time, for the quiet, pragmatic boy who was becoming the closest friend she'd ever had, she had forged a set of combat-ready kunai - three of them, made of a new alloy that was strong and hard and took a wonderful dark shine. They were painstakingly wrought and exquisitely balanced – she had thrown out countless failures until she had got them _just so_ – the type of kunai that ninja saved for hand-to-hand combat, the type they did not throw unless they absolutely had to. She hadn't put any of the elaborate scrollwork or engravings that she'd wasted her time on last year, letting the workmanship and lethality of the pieces speak for themselves – except, she hadn't been able to resist carving a tiny dragon on the handles. Two of the weaponsmiths at the Konoha armory had immediately offered her a handsome price for them, and looked disappointed when she had to refuse.

Neji accepted the box as quietly, but this time he said, "Thank you."

Tenten beamed, and something bright and happy rose up in her chest. She skipped a little away from him, keeping her eyes on his face the whole time, and then insisted that they train for the upcoming Chuunin Exams, because she needed an excuse to yell and jump and throw things.

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The downside to all this, she discovered later, was that when she noticed that Neji had never used the kunai or even put them in his kunai-pouch, she couldn't shrug it off.**

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Preview: A new, Naruto-thrashed-and-therefore-changed Neji celebrates his fifteenth birthday.**

_Notes: I know this is short, but the next chapter'll be much longer, I promise. Also, it will include drunken!Naruto, drunken!Kiba, and the first bits of fluff! (If I can just finish the damn thing...) Thanks to everyone for the reviews, especially Toboe, Ennariel, Anonymouse-who-left-a-nice-long-review, demonesszen, and basically everyone who took the time to tell me what they thought, perhaps their ideas, and therefore jumpstarted the fic-bunnies. We thank you!_

_And this is a Nejiten fluff piece, so don't worry. Neji will redeem himself. _

_Eventually. _


	3. Fifteenth Birthday

**Disclaimer: Naruto belongs not to me. Nor to you. Yet I encourage everyone to write more fics! Why? Why the hell not?

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On Neji's fifteenth birthday, to celebrate the new, more open, more mentally-stable person Neji had become after his turning-point match with Uzumaki Naruto in the Chuunin exams – and maybe because they no longer feared being severely beaten for their presumption – Gai and Lee had arranged a surprise birthday party for the Hyuuga boy.

Well, it was the brainchild of Gai and Lee, but you couldn't really say they had arranged it; Tenten had ended up riding guard over the two enthusiastic party-givers, constraining the amount of green used, vetoing most of the weirder items on the menu, soothing horrified caterers, running around with invitations and warnings not to show these invitations to anyone else, and basically running the show from the background.

Moreover, she had to do all this while keeping up with her regular sparring/training/humbling (as she privately thought of it) sessions with Neji, so that he wouldn't suspect anything.

So by the time the actual party – held, with Hiashi-sama's permission, on the Hyuuga grounds – came around, Tenten was too exhausted to be very lively. She was content to stand quietly, sipping green punch (the two Beasts had prevailed that much) and watching amusedly as the party-goers laughed and danced and talked. She had a long, interesting discussion with Nara Shikamaru about alternative uses of weapons in combat situations, until an irritated-looking blonde kunoichi dragged him off; she made the acquaintance of several of Neji and Hinata's cousins, Branch and Main House both, and discovered that it _was_ possible for Hyuugas to be loud and/or cheerful; and in her one burst of physical activity, she helped Uzumaki Naruto (who was visiting from his three-year training journey) tackle Inuzuka Kiba to the ground when they spotted him trying to spike the punch. They both lectured him on the grave dangers of a drunken Lee, although Tenten left when Naruto eagerly suggested just keeping the liquor for themselves.

Finally she removed herself to a dark, still corner of the gardens for some peace and quiet. She leaped lightly upwards into the spreading branches of a tall, undoubtedly ancient narra tree, settling herself comfortably in the nook formed by the y-spread of two leafy boughs.

She let her head fall back against the tree-trunk, already feeling a sleepy languor settle over her. Somewhere in the back of her mind was a faint uneasiness about falling asleep in the middle of the party, with no one knowing where she was and no one to wake her lest she sleep till morning in the middle of the Hyuuga grounds. Still, that concern counted for little against the weight of her sleep-deprived eyes.

She drifted into a deep, exhaustion-drugged sleep. Her usually impeccable shinobi-trained senses were muffled underneath a deep blanket of slumber, to the point that someone landing on the branch, causing it to dip and sway under the new weight, didn't even cause her to wake, even though normally the mere _presence_ of someone close enough to the tree would have snapped her into weapons-ready alertness. It took a hard shaking of her shoulders to rouse Tenten from her sleep, something which almost frightened the one who had to do it.

She emerged from sleep slowly, like someone pushing through a thick fog; she blinked eyes dazed with sleep, stretched, almost fell out of her little tree-nest if not for the strong grip on her shoulder. Jolted a little more into the waking world by her near-fall, Tenten reflexively yawned as her eyes tried to focus on the person next to her.

"Neji?" she murmured sleepily, one hand coming up to rub at her eyes. She blinked at him, still seeing nothing but a bleary outline.

"You've been here all this time." Neji's voice was flat, but Tenten decided to take it as a question and explain herself.

"Well…I was tired, and it was so noisy, and it was so quiet here…anyway it's not like I've been here all night, I talked to Kiba-kun and Naruto-kun and Shikamaru-kun and Hinata-chan and Hiro-kun and Heiji-kun and…" she babbled sleepily, the filter between her thoughts and her voice temporarily removed by drowsiness.

"You met my cousins?" Neji's voice, this time, had a definite note of surprise in it.

"Mm, yeah. Hiro-kun kinda reminds me of you, only, you know, his hair is short…Heiji-kun is sweet. He's adorable! So cute…"

"I…I haven't seen you. At the party. I saw them, but not…I didn't see you."

Tenten yawned again, and turned over for a more restful position, leaning her head against a warm, surprisingly comfortable surface. "I saw you at the beginning," she murmured, beginning to fall back asleep. "Surprise! Face…all surprised…" Her eyes drifted closed.

Neji held very still, afraid to move for fear of waking her. He found himself controlling his breaths.

His carefulness was rendered moot when a loud explosion suddenly erupted from the direction of the party they had left behind, jolting both ninja. Tenten really did fall off the tree this time, Neji having to haul her back into the branches by main strength. Tenten panted slightly, adrenaline from her sudden waking and her equally sudden fall shocking her into awareness.

"What was that!"

The veins near Neji's eyes bulged as he activated his Byakugan, peering in the direction of the party. "Someone…someone set fire to the punchbowl?" he said blankly. "Wait...those _idiots_. Uzumaki and Inuzuka." He growled. "They had better have a good explanation as to why they're running around half-naked and painting themselves like savages. And also – _how_ did they get fruit punch to explode? Dammit," he swore, uncharacteristically. "Now Hinata-sama's gone and fainted."

Tenten couldn't help but giggle. "Poor Hinata," she said, grinning. "Two hot guys running around half-naked. Oh how she suffers." She threw back her head and laughed a little more, not noticing the suddenly intense stare Neji fixed on her.

"You didn't give me a birthday present," he said suddenly, cutting off her laughter, and she swiveled to stare at him. "I looked at the presents on the table," he said, nonchalantly acknowledging his use of Byakugan for his own purposes, "Lee got me leg-weights and Gai got me another green suit. Naruto got me coupons to ramen. You didn't give anything."

Tenten gaped, too astounded by his bluntness and lack of tact to feel much else. And perhaps it was the lack of sleep – or maybe it was because he'd been so different lately, more open, less…less _unhappy –_ or maybe it was a memory…

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"_Why?" Why are you giving me this? Why do you care? _

"_Because. I'm glad you were born."

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…but in the end, she didn't snap at him, or point out that she'd already dedicated a significant portion of her time and effort to arranging him a party, or remind him of what he did with her last presents.

No, in the end, she pulled an answer from thin air.

"I...I was meaning to bake you a cake! But…but it's not yet done!" she half-yelped, pulling away from him. "I'll give it to you tomorrow," she promised, trying not to fidget.

Neji studied her with those pale Byakugan-eyes, and Tenten fought against the urge to wince away, waiting for the inevitable accusation: "_Liar_."

But it never came, and instead Neji just jumped down and began to stroll casually back to the party. "I'll be looking forward to it," he called back, over his shoulder, and Tenten slumped back against the tree-trunk.

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As a point of fact, Tenten was not at all a bad hand at the kitchen; but she had never before tried to bake a cake, though she was perfectly capable of dishes such as_ yang chow_ fried rice, sesame-seed dumplings, and _shabu-shabu _noodles. Desserts and confections, however, had never been necessary in her life. Still she sallied forth, bravely, with eggs and flour and milk at her side.

She had long ago passed the point of mere coffee (the new western drink that was a closely-guarded, jealously-kept secret of the burners of the midnight oil, such as herself) being enough to keep her awake, and instead scoffed handfuls of chocolate-covered coffee beans. Usually one handful was enough to give her a boost of energy that made Lee seem restrained; now each bean was like a little coin, buying mere awareness for minutes.

She failed several times, over-pouring the milk, adding bacon – she had no idea why – to the batter, falling asleep as it baked so as to end with a lump of black carbon, substituting salt and pepper for sugar and cinnamon. These mistakes were born more out of her increasingly desperate need to close her eyes rather than any ineptitude; still, she ended up staying in the kitchen until the night-sky began to lighten from black into deep blue. She gazed blearily at the less-than-perfect (it was somewhat lopsided) but-edible cake that had formed in her oven, then fell asleep leaning against the oven's glass door.

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She jerked awake with a startled oath at the shrill blare of her alarm clock. She flew upstairs and smacked the evil thing hard enough to send it into the wall – it merely bounced onto the floor, smugly unharmed.

After several incidents of Tenten having subconsciously skewered alarm clocks with the kunai she always tucked beneath her pillow, her team had pitched in and gotten her a special, nigh-indestructible model with an obnoxiously loud alarm. Neji had only just managed to convince Gai and Lee to refrain from recording a loud message of YOUTH and HARD WORK and leaving it with the traditional bell.

Tenten hated it, but was too touched by her teammates' thoughtfulness to do anything but set it, dutifully, every day. (Also they had threatened to fetch her themselves the next time she overslept).

And it was a good thing, too, because now she had to scramble if she wanted to make it to the training-grounds before Neji lost his patience and began destroying the local wildlife. The Evil Alarm Clock was equipped with a sliding scale; it began with Obnoxiously Loud, moved to Deafening, and finished with Sonic Weaponry levels of sound. Tenten had been so deeply asleep, so far away from the clock, that by the time she'd woken up it was at the Sonic Weaponry level – which meant she was late.

She hurriedly splashed water onto her face and hands, gargled, and raced back out of her room less than a minute after she had entered. She'd fallen asleep in her clothes and therefore did not technically need to change; she tied her hitai-ate around her head with one hand while scooping the cake out of the cake-pan and into a waxed box with the other.

She sprinted out of the house, clutching the cake-box under one arm, trying to keep her loosely-knotted hitai-ate from slipping over her eyes with the other. The one good thing about being up this early was the lack of people in the streets; Tenten could run headlong to the training-grounds.

Of course when she did arrive, Neji was already there, leaving Tenten to wonder how someone sitting in a classic lotus-position, face perfectly blank, the ideal image of 'The Student in Meditation', could project such an aura of irritated impatience.

"Um, hi Neji," Tenten mumbled. She thrust the box of cake forward, less like a present than a shield. She was suddenly struck by a slight tingle of remembrance to other presents given to Neji for his birthday; but he was different, the present was different, and it wasn't his birthday. And he'd asked for it. (Demanded, really.) It would be different...this time...

Neji took the box from her, hardly looking at it for staring at her. "Tenten…"

Tenten suddenly realized how she must look; rumpled, slept-in clothes, smears of flour and chocolate fudge on her skin, hair-buns half-unraveled, hitai-ate slipping over her forehead for an almost Kakashi-esque look. She grinned sheepishly. "Come on!" she chirped, deliberately upbeat. "Tell me what you think about the cake!"

"Right…" Neji said slowly. He opened the box, peered at the cake. "It looks…edible," he said, in a tone of wonder.

Tenten rolled her eyes. "Yes, Neji-kun. When I said that I would bake something, you can find it safe to assume that I would know how to bake," she lied through her teeth.

Neji grinned back, which shocked her slightly, and produced a fork (reminding her that she'd forgotten to bring silverware) from somewhere. He carefully carved out a bite-sized piece of cake, lifting the pale-brown piece of cake to his mouth…

Tenten suddenly realized that the 'correct' cake was dark brown; the pale-brown cake was the one she'd accidentally poured salt and pepper into. She opened her mouth to warn him, only to fall silent as Neji popped the morsel into his mouth. She winced as he chewed, waiting for the inevitable explosion.

"It's delicious," Neji told her. He swallowed, and if Tenten didn't know any better – that the cake must taste horrible – she'd say he did it naturally. "Thank you, Tenten."

She really should have said something, and saved him from his horrible fate; but she was too dumbstruck to do anything but stare as Neji politely ate enough cake to make up a good-sized piece, just as if it was delicious – Neji lying through his teeth (almost literally) just to spare her feelings…

A huge grin spread across her face. She finally sprang at him and hugged him, forcing him to drop the cake. (It died an unlamented smushy death on the grass) "Happy birthday, Neji!" she told him, still grinning wildly.

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**Preview: The return of the Neji fangirls! **_

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Notes: Thank you for all the reviews, Ennariel, Wildcatt, misstr3ss and everyone else who reviewed! Hopefully people won't be so mad at Neji now, even if he did force Tenten to stay up all night baking for him…hm, maybe he isn't being as sweet as I thought I wrote him._

_I'm currently tying myself into knots over certain problems over my admissions application to my university, and this ends the last of the prewritten parts, and though I've got the rest plotted out I'll have to write them. (sigh) So I don't know how soon I'll have the next part up. _

_(Although, somewhat strangely, it may actually be up sooner than later, considering I write fanfic whenever I should be doing something else and more productive to society. )_


	4. Sixteenth Birthday: Planning

**Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. However, I have several plotbunnies running around in my head who claim to be Naruto. I whack them with chocolate bars until they squeak, but they don't stop saying it.

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Hyuuga Hiashi, who knew very well who was largely responsible for Neji's unexpectedly successful fifteenth birthday party – even with the reports of naked boys in war-paint streaking around the premises – had asked Tenten to arrange Neji's sixteenth birthday party as well. He offered to pay her for her services, which she turned down laughingly but with real offense and surprise behind it – which, Hiashi thought, spoke well for her.

The party was more important this year than it had been last year. Though Hyuugas weren't considered full adults in the eyes of the clan until their eighteenth birthday, their sixteenth year was an important stepping-stone nonetheless. It was at this point that Main House heirs usually began taking over certain aspects of clan leadership, and their cousins also begin training in whatever roles the clan had decided would be best for them. In the old days, the age of sixteen was when marriage negotiations would begin, and it was still traditionally the point at which murmurings about advantageous unions would begin to reach the ears of the teenage Hyuuga in question.

The clan would be looking very intently at this celebration for Hyuuga Neji, Branch House heir, Hyuuga prodigy, and one of the most talented shinobi in Konoha. Hiashi intended to make a statement with the party, to show how highly he regarded his nephew, and also – by allowing an outsider to take charge of the affair – how little Hiashi intended to be a slave to the tradition that had forced him along so many distasteful things in his life.

Tenten took charge of the planning with a smooth efficiency that seemed more suited to someone much older than herself. After Hiashi saw her quietly and yet thoroughly awe the kitchen staff of the Hyuuga clan, and actually get the crotchety old head chef – who could have been a Hyuuga elder could he have been pried from the kitchen, and who still saw Hiashi as the little boy whose knuckles he had rapped for trying to steal sweetmeats rather than as his clan leader – to smile, he was impressed. When she went over spreadsheets and cost-reports with every indication of knowing what she was about – indeed, her conversation with the CPA-certified Hyuuga in charge of clan finances was so laden with jargon it was nearly unintelligible to the listening Hiashi – he was more than impressed, he was intrigued, and set one of his more trusted lieutenants to check this girl's background.

He read it over one night, and a new possibility presented itself to his mind. He smiled to himself in the dark.

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Tenten absentmindedly chewed on the ring-end of a kunai – a habit she'd kept from babyhood - as she studied a blueprint of the Hyuuga compound, mentally laying out the tables and chairs and seating-plans for the party. This was more complicated than it seemed – for example, making sure that the Inuzuka clan elders would _not_ be next to anything that might emit a powerful scent, yet making sure the Nara clan-members had adequate sources of light (when they had no shadows they tended to get antsy) while keeping the Aburames far enough away from the food not to freak anyone out yet not far enough to offend the bug-users. It was like juggling several kunai with one hand – which, by the way, was an exercise in dexterity she enjoyed.

She scribbled notes onto a piece of scrap paper, planning to transfer them in a more legible hand to the sheaf of papers that would be her report to Hiashi-sama in the morning…

Tenten looked up as three very precise knocks sounded from her door. She got up and hurriedly opened the door, knowing that if she didn't Neji – who was the only one who knocked that way, as if each knock was as sharply delineated as a written character – would decide to enter by himself. She didn't have the time to deal with replacing her doorknobs again.

Sure enough, the tall white-eyed boy was leaning against the doorframe, hair sprinkled lightly with raindrops that glittered like little silver beads. A raindrop – it had begun to drizzle slightly, Tenten just noticed – rolled slowly over the high cheekbones that had become more noticeable with the maturation of Neji's looks, and Tenten caught herself following its path with hungry eyes before she snapped back to herself and invited Neji inside.

"Hey Neji," Tenten chirped, "What's up? Do you want some tea or…"

"Train with me," Neji interrupted her. He folded his arms across his chest, and fixed her with stern white eyes, looking very formidable from his six-foot height. Tenten yearned with all her might for a similar growth spurt so she wouldn't feel so _small_ when she stood next to him.

"You've not trained for three days," Neji continued, and Tenten winced guiltily; fleetingly she wished Neji wasn't as all-knowing (at least when it came to her training, which was of paramount importance in Neji's bloodlimit eyes) as he was about her. "Let's go."

Tenten was tempted – very tempted. She _hadn't _trained in three days, and she hated that knowledge, the fear that her sharply-honed combat edge would begin to dull – in the level of prowess that she moved in, such subtle things as a day of missed training mattered – and she hated feeling that Neji thought her weak, that he was moving even further beyond her reach than he already was.

Moreover, her back hurt from bending over paper, and her limbs were stiff from stillness, and the thought of letting herself run and leap and fly as fast and as high as she wanted – of the feel of cold steel and smooth wood in her hands, of cool rain-damp air whipping past her as she moved – it all sounded wonderful.

But her eyes darted to the papers spread out over her table – and she sighed and visibly deflated, her shoulders slumping. "I'd like to, Neji, but I can't. I need to get these reports to Hiashi-sama ready by tonight, so that he can sign them in time for the orders tomorrow…"

Neji scowled. "They're for _my_ birthday," he argued, distaste twisting the last word. "It doesn't have to be this…elaborate, and you don't have to be the one to do it. Come train with me."

Tenten shook her head. Neji was wrong; it _did_ have to be this elaborate – Neji was being, for all intents and purposes, presented to the world as a favorite, a protégé, of the Clan Head – and she was going to make sure it went off without a hitch.

"I'm sorry, Neji," she said, and there was a finality in her words.

Neji's scowl deepened, and then he stalked over to her desk with long, sweeping strides. He grabbed a sheet of paper at random and studied it, brows creasing.

"Neji!" Tenten yelped, hurrying to his side. "What are you doing?"

"It's my birthday," he repeated, stubbornly. "I want to see what they're making you do for it." He reread the complicated tangle of diagrams and words, trying to make sense of it and rather failing.

Tenten hovered anxiously at his shoulder. "You don't need to, I'll take care of it, I'll do it…" she babbled.

She was silenced by a certain look Neji slanted at her from the corner of his eye. "I'll help you," he told her. "Then we can go train."

Tenten sat down slowly. "Fine," she sighed.

* * *

Much to Neji's chagrin, he found he wasn't really able to help Tenten all that much. Details like hiring caterers, arranging menus, providing entertainment, and organizing seating plans had never even crossed his mind, much less the expectation that one day _he'd_ have to do it. He ended up being reduced to a tea/coffee (what was in that barbarous brown drink that made Tenten so addicted to it anyway?) maker, ferrying cups of hot beverage to Tenten every so often.

At some point he went out to fetch them dinner; because he certainly couldn't be trusted in the kitchen. When he came back, toting plastic bags full of Chinese take-out, he found Tenten sprawled on top of her papers, deeply asleep.

Neji stood there for a long while, just watching her.

Then he put the Chinese food into Tenten's refrigerator, sticking up a little note to inform her of her new supply of _yang chow_ and roast duck. Then he went back to her, and carefully picked her up from her neck-straining position. She made a soft, sleepy sound and turned over against his chest, and he froze; but she did not wake.

Neji, walking as softly as he knew how (which, being a shinobi, was very soft indeed) carried her over to the living-room couch and placed her gently onto the soft green upholstery. When he tried to straighten up, he discovered that one of her hands had some tangled itself in a loose bunch of his tunic; it fell away when he pulled, and she let her arm dangle over the side of the couch.

Then he scooped up the papers arrayed on the table and put them into a single thick stack, which he stuck underneath his arm. He left her apartment, noiselessly as a ninja does, and did not even turn off the light so that no sudden change of brightness should stir her.

He made his way quickly back to his compound, not stopping until he stood in front of Hiashi's study. He knocked once on his uncle's door, and went in without waiting for the answer – which indiscretion of the careful Branch member made Hiashi's eyebrows climb.

Neji put the stack of reports on his uncle's desk with a soft 'thump'. He then proceeded to explain the whys, wherefores and hows of this deliver; and he ended by saying: " – and so you won't give her any more papers, or plans, or order-forms for her to be bothered by; she hasn't trained for three days, and she will forget how to hold a fuuma shuriken soon. I _will_ spar with her tomorrow, and she will remember that she is kunoichi and not – not a party-maker." The note of possessive indignation, the missing 'My, mine, my _own'_ rang very loudly in Neji's rant.

Hiashi was amused and so he agreed; but he was even more amused when Tenten came in later that evening, worrying that the papers had been stolen by "_them_" and that security should be immediately increased on all fronts. When she learned that Neji had taken the papers – _her _papers – her eyes flashed, and she seemed very likely to give Neji painful and obvious proof that she had _not_ forgotten how to hold a shuriken.

She chased him out to one of the pebbly courtyards of the Hyuuga compound, drawing an audience of interested Hyuugas, where they proceeded to engage in a quick, flickering, fast-paced spar; which, Hiashi reflected as he watched them fight, may have been his nephew's intention all along.

A cheer went up as Tenten began to twist in the mid-air acrobatics of her Soushoryuu, and Hiashi smiled to himself again.

* * *

**Author's Notes (warning, kinda long. Like this fic is turning out to be)**

I know I promised the advent of the obnoxious fangirls in this chapter, but it ran on longer than I expected; so I decided to cut it into portions. They'll be here later, I promise.

Much love to Ennariel, Wildcatt, unexpection, Drake-Azaroth, mistr3ss, Alana, and everyone else who reviewed.

And, proving that reviews are good for the mind (and for the plotbunnies), a combination of Wildcatt (for another fic) and Ennariel's reviews spawned another aspect to this surprisingly long fic.

**Ennariel** said: '_Yayz. Can't wait for Neji-fangirls! (Hmm, are there Tenten fanboys?)'_

And **Wildcatt** has, in the past, planted the seeds of half-naked Hyuuga boys (not necessarily Neji) running around. This has been nourished by **saccharinesyrup's** fanarts of said half-naked Hyuuga boys. Sooo…this is my reply to Ennariel.

"_And there are Tenten fanboys. You've met them; they're the Hyuuga cousins and other assorted interested young males Tenten spoke to during the party! (And who hid her from the birthday-boy) Heh."_

Kukukuku! (grins evilly)


	5. Sixteenth Birthday: Errands

**Disclaimer: Narutoverse characters do not belong to me. Neither do characters/elements from the three other anime I referenced in this chapter; if you're the first one to name all three I'll do a request oneshot. Or I'll yelp like a dog three times in the middle of the day, take your pick.

* * *

**

As promised, Tenten spent the whole of the next day sparring with Neji. But the day after _that_ she was back at her professed duty of party-manager, getting as early a start as possible. Hiashi found her in the Hyuuga compound's main kitchens before the breakfast meal was served, informing the head chef that they would shortly be receiving a shipment of blue water-peppers – rare in the spring, and absolutely not to be obtained for blood or tears at any point afterwards.

She left the speechless head-chef with a polite bow and hurried over to Hiashi, already pulling out papers from the messenger's-pouch she had taken to carrying with her. Hiashi greeted her with a quiet smile and a nod of his head, saying, "You have eternally secured Hayo-san's affections, I think."

Tenten looked puzzled.

Hiashi gave a low chuckle – frightening two Main House members who were passing by – and changed the subject. "You've mentioned a certain '_they'_ might have taken the records. Why would you say such a thing?"

"Oh." Tenten smiled sheepishly. "Please don't worry about that - I was only being a little paranoid. Hiashi-sama, you do know Neji has a…fanclub of his own? They were our classmates in the Academy. They used to throw him birthday parties when we were in school…"

"Ah yes," Hiashi remembered long arguments about the necessity of a perfect attendance-record, and also hopeful matrons dropping by the Hyuuga compound. He had been glad those days were over.

"Well, they found out about last year's party. And that I'm to help arrange Neji's sixteenth birthday party this year. And they…they want invitations," Tenten said, choosing her words carefully.

Hiashi was beginning to utter an emphatic and automatic denial when he realized that Tenten wasn't finished.

"Of course I said no." (Hiashi breathed a sigh of relief).

"Neji would never forgive me, for one thing; for another, the list of guests is already confirmed. They were a little…upset by that. Nothing I couldn't handle, of course," and the unconscious, battle-ready arrogance of that statement made Hiashi grin to himself – she resembled his nephew, at that moment, more than he would have thought possible. "But when Neji took the papers I thought that they might have, for once, come up with a semi-dangerous scheme to get into the grounds. They hadn't, of course. They're not even genin, most of them." Tenten's contempt was as obvious – if only to Byakugan-insight eyes – as it was automatic.

"I see," Hiashi said thoughtfully.

* * *

That night, Hiashi formed a bodyguard for Tenten – who was, after all, in danger because of a favor she was doing for the clan.

He was a little surprised by the large number of willing – downright eager – volunteers to make up the bodyguard. He hadn't known that Tenten had met so many of the clan, and that they were willing to deprive themselves of sleep/free-time/missions in order to spend the day as her bodyguard/gofers.

Before he could sort through all the enthusiastic would-be bodyguards, too, he had to deal with an indignant nephew who burst into the room and demanded why Tenten needed to be assigned a bodyguard. He, Neji, was perfectly capable of fending off any stupid (he actually was agitated enough to use the adjective) fangirls if Tenten wasn't.

Hiashi pointed out that if the females in question were attacking Tenten _because_ she was arranging a party for Neji – and perhaps because they resented her closeness to him (Hiashi watched Neji's face very carefully as he said that) – then having Neji nearby would not be an intelligent move. In fact he would recommend that Neji stay away from her, for the time being, when they were in town.

(He also noticed with interest the grins several of the other boys sported at this news).

Neji, after more arguing than Hiashi thought would be necessary, grudgingly acquiesced; but he did not then leave. Instead he leaned against a corner of the wall and glowered at his cousins.

Hiashi, shaking his head, soon sorted through the available schedules and had two-shinobi shifts of young Hyuugas arranged for Tenten. Neji, sulking from his earlier defeat, had put his foot down on them accompanying her to their private training-sessions; no fangirls had ever dared bother either of them before, and he doubted they would do so now. Besides, they would be nothing he couldn't handle - Hiashi choking as Neji unconsciously emulated Tenten from earlier in the day.

"Why, where do you train?" One of Neji's cousins – Hyuuga Hatori – asked with studied nonchalance.

Neji slanted a glare at him, then smirked and replied, "Nowadays, at the Forest of Death."

A sudden silence filled the room.

* * *

Hyuuga Neji, as ordered, kept out of Tenten's way when they were in town – but _not_ out of Byakugan range, a position he considered entirely in keeping with his duty as Tenten's teammate.

Neji disliked the fact that Tenten was going to so much trouble for his birthday in the first place; he had felt awkward enough last year, when he'd learned what she'd done (and her exhaustion had been explained). And he was even more annoyed by the thought of his burden of a fanclub plaguing _her_ because of that. If they _dared_ harass her now, it would be _he_, Hyuuga Neji, who would take care of it – and _not_ his cousins, who ought to have nothing at all to do with the affair.

He extended his Byakugan's range slightly to eye both his cousins. Hiashi had presented the two shinobi to Tenten that morning, more as errand-boys than as a bodyguard, which Neji had warned him she would not like. (Now he rather wished he hadn't – maybe Tenten would have refused them then). Accordingly, Tenten had cheerfully made use of her new resources, and both boys had arms piled full of packages.

Neji looked first at the shorter boy to the right. Hyuuga Hiro did not trouble him overmuch; the older Hyuuga had a taciturn, blunt-speaking personality very similar to Neji's own, and the two quiet boys got along quite well. Neji trusted Hiro as much as he trusted any member of his family, even though Hiro was abroad too often for them to be called 'close'. A half-blood (meaning that the clan's genes, usually fully dominant in a Hyuuga-born child, had been superseded by other inherited traits) Hyuuga, born of a foreign father, Hiro had the strange characteristic of being able to activate his Byakugan even though his eyes were the dark blue of his birth-father's, rather than the tell-tale silver of a Hyuuga. True, his Byakugan was weaker than most, but Hiro's skills more than made up for it; and, he was able to go undercover as few Hyuugas were. He was a capable shinobi, intelligent and self-controlled.

Also, Hiro already had a girl to whom he was fiercely devoted; a noble-born girl who was notable for her high rank in her country's government despite her young age. Hiro spent just as much time – perhaps more – at her side as he did with his clan. Neji tried to recall her name – Lilina, wasn't it? In any case, he had no reason to worry for Tenten's virtue around Hiro.

His face settling into a slight scowl, Neji moved his attention to the other Hyuuga. Hyuuga Hige was an entirely different matter. The tall, broad-shouldered teenager ran a hand through his thick light-brown hair in a move Neji sourly suspected him of practicing in front of a mirror, grinning at Tenten. Neji grit his teeth.

Hige was a chuunin, the same rank as Tenten and Neji, but had had to be kicked that far. The nineteen-year-old's interest seemed to be fixed on good food, women, and alcoholic beverages, not necessarily in that order, and he only pursued his shinobi training in that it would help him obtain said objectives. To Neji's disgruntlement (and some bewilderment) Hige always seemed to be possessed of copious amounts of his favorite foods and alcohol and – more annoyingly – to be surrounded by women who liked to coo at him, pinch his cheeks, and cuddle with him. Hige's nickname in the Hyuuga household was 'that wolf', more for his skill with women than for any battle-trait associated with the animal.

No, Neji did not _at all_ like that Hige was one of Tenten's companions. He glared at Hige a little too long, shutting off his Byakugan when Hiro began to look around suspiciously. He turned his head and began to scan for fangirls, hoping to take out his frustration on them. He grinned fiercely when he spotted one; he took off as noiselessly as a shadow, gleefully imagining the jelly-tar-feathers trap he would set.

Vengeance for stupid parties in the Academy – and for other, more recent things – would be his.

* * *

Tenten was helping Hiro choose a teddy-bear for his girlfriend – she had smiled so widely when he had quietly asked for her help that it had hurt – when she heard a bloodcurdling scream rip through the mid-morning hum of the market. Hiro and Tenten immediately raced to the scene, shinobi-trained senses at fullest straining alert.

"MY HAIR!"

They just as immediately lost interest in the situation. They turned their backs on the yelping, squealing girl whose long hair had been drenched in some sticky substance and liberally peppered with feathers, and went back to their store. Tenten chewed her lip absent-mindedly, trying to remember if she had seen the girl before. She shrugged when no name came to mind.

It was probably one of Naruto's random pranks. She shoved it to the back of her mind as they met up with Hige, who was contentedly munching on a pastry shaped like a dinosaur's head. "Want one?" he offered her, "They're the specialty of the Matsuda bakery, really tasty."

Tenten smiled and thanked him, then broke the bread in half and gave one part to Hiro. The three ate their snack and chatted – well, what passed for chatting with Hiro; in any case Hige made up whatever lack of words his cousin suffered - as they returned to the Hyuuga compound, unaware of the figure shadowing them.

* * *

**Preview: The actual party, and the last chapter of Neji's sixteenth birthday. And the fangirls' last assault!

* * *

**

_Notes: As I mentioned above, if you can name the three cameos (of a sort) in this chapter first I'll do any request for a oneshot you want. If you want. I dunno, just a sort of game to keep this chapter interesting, seeing as how dragged-out this part's been. _

_Many thanks go to **Ennariel, Tanya Lilac, Kyuubi0sama** (and yes, those were her fanboys. As for the kunai-thing…maaaaybe. ) **unexpection, HyuugaTenTen, burnished velvet**, and **Nessie-chan**, and everyone else who reviewed and kicked my lazy butt in gear. The plotbunnies thrive thanks to your contributions! _

_And let's have some cheers for the awesome **saccharinesyrup**, artist of incredible talent at making adorable, melt-worthy drawings, who actually did a fanart of this; Tenten from chapter 3, all rumpled and tousled and Kakashi-hitai-ate-slipping-ish. She rocks so hard. (glomps saccharinesyrup)_


	6. Sixteenth Birthday: Setup

**Long-delayed but actually here. Forgive? **

* * *

The morning of Hyuuga Neji's sixteenth birthday dawned fair and clear - much to the relief of the Hyuugas, who feared that any other result would cause Tenten and Hayo-san, the cook, to be irritated.

Tenten arrived early in the morning, was greeted by a significant portion of the compound's population, and was very flattered by their courtesy - but she was too focused on the tasks awaiting her to react very much.

And Neji was thankful for this as he watched her from his second-storey room, perched on his windowsill like a brooding eagle. She was currently giving orders to a group of visibly eager Hyuuga boys, the ones who had served as her bodyguards looking as if they considered her their own special property and the ones who hadn't looking as if they intended to make up for this lack. They bristled jealously at each other and Neji, far above, bristled jealously at them all. She was _his _teammate, _his _classmate, even, and he had known her for YEARS longer than they had. By what right did they dare speak to her so familiarly - look at her so smilingly?

Tenten looked at the clipboard in her hands much more often than she looked at the Hyuugas surrounding her, and this comforted Neji. But whenever she did look up she distributed smiles and kind looks and "please"s and "thank you"s with a generosity that dazzled the undemonstrative Hyuugas - and _this _annoyed Neji. Soon she had them scurrying about on errands and tasks, doing things they would have counted beneath them - yea, beneath even the Branch - with enthusiasm and cheer, concerned only that they make her task, which was all to the benefit of their stuck-up prig of a cousin, who did not in the least deserve her, easier.

Hyuuga Heiji established himself as her faithful shadow - he had been very insulted that he was not one of those chosen to be her bodyguard, and he thought that their excluding him just because he was five years old was very unfair - and dogged her steps; the other Hyuuga boys could not stick so close but they kept returning as soon as their tasks were done to swarm around her, and tell her helpful things, and be smiled at and thanked. In consequence things got set up very quickly.

And when nothing remained but to wait for Hayo and his squad - for he ran his kitchen as tightly as any ANBU frontline team - to complete food preparations, the Hyuugas exhorted Tenten to sit down and rest, and they would bring tea and cookies; Heiji clung to her leg and looked up at her with eyes that could melt the heart of a Cloud-nin, and begged for stories " 'bout dragons and things, in Yongland, please Ten-nee." and Tenten had no choice but to sit herself down on a green slope of the gardens, near where the practice-yards were.

Now this was too much for the watching Neji, and he was downstairs and running before he thought about it. It was true that Hiashi had ordered him to keep out of Tenten's way while she prepared things - but, he argued to himself, in the first place this was not the town, and in the second she was no longer preparing things, so it was perfectly all right for him to join her now. She was so conveniently near to the practice-yards too, it might be possible to get in a nice short spar.

By the time he arrived at the gardens, Heiji had established himself in place-of-pride on Tenten's lap, while his elders jostled for seats next to her. When Heiji understood that Neji was there to interrupt the story of the Lightning Dragon and the Storm That Made The Bamboo Creak, his face was awful to behold; and the other boys looked none too pleased either. Little did Neji care, and Tenten was already automatically putting down her cup of tea when a new group of people entered the scene.

"Neji-kuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuun!" came the cry, and Neji choked and turned pale.

The fangirls. Oh gods no.

They stampeded - no other word would suffice - for him, eyes alight with the zealous glee of rabid tigers making for a kill. Instantly his cousins - well-versed in the ways of Fangirl Protocol, Hiashi had decreed it a necessary lesson for all young Hyuugas (apparently there had been a very traumatic experience in his childhood with his own set of fangirls) - were a goodly distance from him.

And then Neji had an Idea.

It must be admitted that in itself, it was not a new Idea. It had been bouncing around in his head, in forms both conscious and sub-conscious, dreaming and waking, deliberate and inadvertent (and, it must be admitted, both innocent and - not) for months - no, _years_ - now. He had examined the Idea from every possible angle, turning it around in his mind like he would turn over a particularly delicious candy in his mouth, sternly limiting himself to one - or two - or three or four or five, but only if She was looking particularly fetching that day - contemplations of the Idea per day, like an athlete limiting his caloric intake.

But he had been thinking of the Idea more and more lately, and all his powers of practiced meditation would not serve to keep the Idea out when It decided to come in; indeed, Neji had of late despaired that he was becoming obsessed.

But now the Idea seemed an eminently good one. It would not only be something he'd wanted to do for a very long time; it would not only warn his cousins away; it also would drive the fangirls away.

This Neji decided in the first half of a moment - in the second half he had spun, grabbed Tenten (all the while pretending he hadn't seen the stampeding horde) and in a move that Gai and Lee would have applauded as Brimming With Youth, dipped her like a flamenco-dancer hyped on sugar, bent his head to hers, and proceeded to kiss the living daylights out of Tenten like he had so often dreamed of doing.

A complete and absolute Silence - one that could not be described without capitalization - one such as may have been on the world when God first looked upon his work, and declared it Good - wrapped around the Hyuuga gardens, fangirls and fanboys and kissing couple all. Except for Neji, whose pale eyes had fluttered shut, every pair of eyes there were round with shock - including Tenten's.

And then the Silence was shattered by the heartbroken wailing of several teenage fangirls whose object of affection had just shown - very obviously - that he was now taken. They fled as quickly as they had come, and later the more spiteful among them would gather and try to hatch dark plots against She Who Had Stolen Our Neji-kun, but for now they, one and all, only wanted to flee to their bedrooms, weep into pillows, and consume massive amounts of ice-cream.

Within a few minutes the gardens were empty of all females aside from Tenten. Neji let her up, no longer looking at her but at the direction to which the fangirls had fled, with a satisfied look in his eye.

Later, they would argue whether it was Bad Luck, Karma, or his Fate. Heiji would maintain stoutly that it was because Neji was a "dam' bash'trd," no matter how his mother gasped (and his father smirked) at his language.

But regardless of the reason, it was an undeniable fact that in the midst of the shocked silence, Neji picked the wrong thing to say.

"Well," he announced, in a tone of supreme self-satisfaction, "That's got rid of _them." _He did not look at his teammate as he said this, which was a mistake.

"Hyuuga Neji, you unmitigated, unbelievable...ASSHOLE," Tenten hissed, in a tone low and quiet and utterly deadly, right before she hauled back and punched him in the jaw.

Tenten did not do slapping.

And then she was gone, fleeing the Hyuugas with their pale eyes all too much like his own, and disappearing with the speed of a Gai-trained kunoichi before anyone could so much as blink.

More than a dozen Byakugan eyes - even Heiji's activated, for the first time ever - swiveled to stare at a gaping Neji - and their gaze was not friendly.

At that moment, Hiashi - trailed by his two daughters and by most of the Council of Hyuuga Elders - emerged into the immaculately set-up party area.

* * *

**Author's Note**

It's been a while, huh? Sorry about that. I knew I promised to end Neji's sixteenth birthday - I remembered to start writing the chapter on July 3, exactly one year since I began the story -- but it took me so long to write I thought I may as well post what i had up. Heh. Anyone still reading this? Any comments? It's been a while since I've written any fic at all...

Yay wisdom teeth removal for giving me an excuse to stay home and write.


	7. Sixteenth Birthday: Sweet Sixteen

* * *

_Sweet Sixteenth_

* * *

Neji had chased Tenten when she wanted him to catch her (to lure him into a trap, usually) - when she didn't want him to catch her (and he had to use all his skill and every bit of in-born advantage to track her, wily little vixen that she was) - but he had never chased her as he did now, when she fled with as little thought and as little finesse as a doe running from the hunter's arrow – and all the wild's speed and instinctive movements to go with it. She ran lightly, but frantically. The Hyuuga estate was on the edge of Konoha proper, as suited their clan's secretive and privacy-seeking ways - not only for them, but for their neighbors' sake as well. And Tenten knew this, and was running into the forest that bordered the village, eyes hot and mind a blazing blank except for the need to _get away. _

But Neji was hot on her heels – his own eyes hot with adrenaline, with something primeval that called him to chase what fled from him so fleetly. She could not shake him, she could not pull away, and his constant presence at her back drove her frantic, until at last she stopped and wheeled like a wolf at bay, and snarled at him. She groped for blades, but had none, for once - it was Hyuuga custom (and a practical one too) that none came to their table armed. But she had hands, and slim-muscled limbs, and kicking feet, and behind them all a red haze of anger and rage and frustrated, humiliated pain. She flung herself at him.

They grappled, none of the cleanly-executed movements drilled into them by years and years of training, rolling on the mossy forest floor. Tenten was a hissing, spitting wildcat, a roiling ball of enraged fury and fingers crooked into claws - but Neji had weight and height on her, and soon he had her pinned beneath him. She struggled wildly, the doe in the hunter's net, but no doe had screamed with such rage.

Then Neji kissed her again, swallowing her enraged cries into his mouth, and Tenten went still with shock underneath him.

* * *

When it was over, she was staring up at him with eyes gone round and huge, and her mouth hung slightly open. Neji had to grin at the sight, had to grin because of having just kissed her, and rested his forehead against hers. His hold relaxed, once she was no longer bucking for escape.

"You didn't give me a birthday present yet," he told her. He kissed her again, but lightly, his lips at the corners of hers, at her neck, on the underside of her jaw. "But ...all...I...want...is _you, _Tenten." He stopped kissing her so he could draw back, a little, and look her straight in the eye, white-silver to amber-brown.

Tenten stared back - and then her face twisted in fury. "You - utter - BASTARD!" she screamed, taking advantage of Neji's loosened hold to break free, rolling to her feet in a single fluid motion that showed all her training hadn't deserted her in this extreme of emotion.

Neji stumbled to his feet after her, his movements considerably less graceful - and was just able to dodge the senbon she flung at his shoulder, proving she had remembered that she _never _went anywhere unarmed, clan protocol or no. "T-Tenten..." His display of speaking prowess would have made his cousin shake her head regretfully.

"You bastard!" she said, again, not as loudly but every bit as fierce. "A present? I'M to be a present? After all I've - all the - you BASTARD!" Normally Tenten was rather eloquent, possessing quite the vocabulary from all her hours in the library. When she began to repeat herself like that it meant she was very close to an utter loss of control.

"Tenten - "

"I am going to cut your limbs off with a red-hot katana, ask Sakura to reattach them or grow you new ones out of that goddamn mane of yours, then cut them off again!" She screamed, and suddenly a katana _was _in her hand. Neji automatically and prudently took a step backwards. She was moving onto detailed threats, now. This was _not good _- not good _at all._

"Never mind limbs, I'm going to take off your ..."

"Tenten, I'm _sorry." _

"...and feed it to...huh?" Tenten trailed off, astonished.

Had Neji just...?

But he never apologized! _Never_! At least not beyond a "Hn," in a vaguely conciliatory tone.

"I'm sorry."

Now he was doing it _again_!

Neji took a step closer to her, and continued in a low, intense voice: "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to - "

"To assault me?" Tenten exclaimed, taking a step back, and then another as he matched her retreat with a quick-stepping advance.

"Yes! I mean no! I mean..." He took a deep breath. "I'm not sorry for kissing you, I can't pretend I am, because I've wanted to do it for a long time. A - very long time," he repeated (and this was even rarer than Tenten repeating herself), but in a softer voice.

"And..." A hint of a smirk touched the corners of his lips. "I felt you kiss back, that first time."

Tenten turned bright red, and she shyly averted her gaze. Then she remembered what he'd done, and lifted her head in defiance and new-waked anger. "You have a lot of nerve..."

"But I am sorry for what I said afterwards," Neji continued, hurriedly, his eyes seeking hers, locking her in his silvery gaze. "I - that's not why I did it. Not entirely - no, not even mostly. It was just - the last thing that tipped over. Don't you see? It was all I could say! The other things - " He looked visibly frustrated with himself. He'd always valued actions over speech. And here was speech, failing him. "The other things, the _real _things behind the kiss, they were - too much to say, don't you see? Don't you _see?"_

He was begging now. Tenten gaped at him, eyes sweeping over white-knuckled hands clenched into fists, the tension almost humming in his body, a chest heaving up and down for breath from the rare, impassioned (if slightly incoherent) speech, the way he leaned towards her... and his eyes. Wide and dilated so she could almost see his pupil, almost Byakugan but without the veins - and open to her, so open, emotions running through them for her to read like she never had before.

"I..." She swallowed hard, and Neji echoed the action in his own nervousness. "I've given you - I've given you weapons, a CAKE, all my attention and my time and my...and this isn't enough for you? You have to HAVE me?"

_'Yes,' _Neji didn't say. "...no, that's not what I..."

He was cut off as Tenten kissed him.

* * *

There was a single moment of perfect, shocked silence. Tenten smiled against his lips as she lay one hand gently against his chest, feeling his heartbeat galloping underneath her fingertips.

Then Neji lunged at her, knocking her back against a tree, and proceeded to try and devour her. Or at least that's what it felt like to the startled girl. She gasped, then involuntarily made a soft sound from deep in her throat as Neji took the chance to deepen the kiss. Her head was whirling and she needed the tree at her back to keep her balance. And she was all too tempted to lose herself in Neji's hungry kiss...

But what fun would that have been?

Finally, panting lightly for breath and with both hands braced on his chest, Tenten managed to push him away, grinning as she noticed the wild look in his eyes and the deep flush on his pale skin. So it wasn't exclusive to Hinata, after all. She forestalled another lunging attempt to kiss her by cupping his face in her hands, laying a gentle kiss on the tip of his nose. Neji stared at her, his eyes with the two concentric rings that marked the awakening of the Byakugan - though without the veins popping up underneath his skin - and Tenten (who'd never been able to study it this closely) thought the second ring, the one around where his pupil would be if he had normal eyes, was spinning slightly, and remembered the rumors of Sharingan being a genetic offshoot of Byakugan.

"Neji," she said softly, "Haven't I proved myself enough to you?" She cut off a frantic reply with a single finger against his lips. "But if you want another present...fine. I'll give you one more, since you're a demanding brat." She grinned at him as she said it, though, and Neji felt a giddy joy rising up inside him, until he felt as if he should be hovering off the ground. She forgave him! She kissed him! She...

"I give you my leave to court me," Tenten told him, then giggled at his dumbstruck expression. With a final kiss on the very tip of his nose, she flitted off back towards the Hyuuga compound, calling over her shoulder. "Whether you WIN me - because I can't give myself away like that, Neji - is another matter. But you can try."

And then she disappeared into the shadows of the forest, fleeing lithe and light as the wind, and Neji chased her in a sort of dreaming daze, following the sound of her laughter and half-seen flashes more than anything else, and didn't notice they were back at his clan compound at first...

...not until an angry mob of his cousins attacked him.

* * *

**AN**

Began writing BEFORE July 3 (the day after being my brother's birthday) but didn't finish until now. Writer's block nothing. This is - like - writer's Berlin Wall. Writer's Siegfried Line. Something huge and bulky and impassable.

But I slogged and I forced myself (witness the painful phrasings in the middle, especially) and here 'tis! Sorry if any of you were waiting.

...now, this is the time for you to leave, unless you wish to listen to a mini-rant that I indulged in with a friend. (slightly edited)

* * *

_**Additional Author's Note: On My Irritation With Forgiveness**_

I know Our Lord Jesus Christ told us to forgive, but I find myself really irritated by this in some fics - fanfic and novels and movies. I am talking about the girl forgiving the guy (as I see it) too easily.

Am I a vengeful person? Maybe I am. I dunno. It's just...I read/see these stories. I'm the first to admit I'm a sucker for soap opera "one has wronged the other" storylines. It doesn't even have to be lovers, can be siblings, friends...parent/child...The parents ignore the child, or the sibling does. Oh, and of course the lover ignores/cheats on/hurts his significant other, that's there a lot. It's fairly cliched, and I am the first to admit it, but if you like the characters at all it sucks you in and makes the work a real page-turner. It's a guilty pleasure, but it is a pleasure. ...like junk food. Yes. Cliched situations like this are the junk food of writing.

What makes me angry is when the wronged one forgives the other one - "so easily" I always think. Which is what is making me wonder if I am a vengeful person. I want the other one to do _MAJOR LEAGUE REPENTANCE_

I'm always shrieking, "WHAT?! That's IT?!" During one romantic comedy thingy, I remember... Oh yeah. It was Notting Hill, which I love. HUGH GRAAAAAAAANT. Ahem. Anyway. The female lead came to his shop, delivered a line, all was sunshine and flowers again. I was so irritated. Now, mark this, I _wanted _them to get together, and I _wanted _their ending to be sunshine and flowers. I just wanted a little redemptive suffering, damn it!

Or, how about when I was in first year high school, and reading those slim teenage romance novels with the photo-covers. (now it's all comic-style, I note). And you don't know what it cost me to admit that. There was high school drama, there was cliches galore. There was the "guy kisses another girl" and I realized by the end of the novel that I wanted the girl to find another guy from then on. I didn't CARE the first guy was so sweet, that he "realized I wanted you" right away, or that he wrote a song for her. (Because I recall they were all in a band.) My friend who lent me the book told me I held grudges. I told her I thought the guy would cheat. She said it was obvious he wouldn't, but I protested why would it be obvious to the main character? Why wasn't she even wary at all of him?

...actually, I think it's not so much the gifts-and-apology than the quickness of it. If the guy gave chocolates, but the girl was wary for some time before accepting him back, or even a "...but they weren't as close as they had been FOR SOME TIME" I'd feel better. It's the instant "THEN EVERYTHING WAS FINE" that irritates me. Heh, I wrote a forgiveness scene myself and I've been kicking myself over whether I wrote it too fast, actually. (I just wanted SOME sort of resolution. So I can see why people do that. It STILL irritates me, especially for when the sins to be forgiven are beyond verbal faux pas or accidents or forgetting things.)

Or maybe, like I said, I'm just a vengeful person who holds (imaginary?) grudges? ...it would make sense for how I write Neji.

**_end rant_**


End file.
